1 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY AS A WAY TO MINIMIZE HUMAN ERROR 1
Theory and Research 3
Head, Body, and Crime: An Example of Long-Lasting Damage to Knowledge Resulting from Human Errors 9
Research Methodology as a Process 11
Essential Features of Research Methodology Comparison/Alternative Plausible Hypotheses 13
Basic and Applied Research 17
References 19
2 ETHICS IN CRIMINAL JUSTICE RESEARCH 21
Ethical Relativism 23
The Nuremberg Code 25
Anonymity and Deception 27
APA Standards 28
Research Posing Ethical Issues Behavior in a Simulated Prison/Tearoom Trade 31
References 35
3 RESEARCH IN CRIMINAL JUSTICE: ISSUES AND PREPARATION 37
Research Issues "Bellow Like a Bull"/The Last Word/More Court Matters/Feedback from Probation Officers/ Police and Weapons/Causes of Crime/ Further Research Topics 39
Preparation for Research Site Exploration and Related Details/Review of the Literature 51
References 58
4 ON ALTERNATIVE PLAUSIBLE HYPOTHESES 60
Internal and External Validity 62
Subjects as Sources of Error "Center of Attention" Effects/Biological and Psychological Alterations/Selection 63
Pitfalls in Measurement Methods Reactivity/Pretesting Effect/Response Set/Changes in Measuring Instruments/Interviewer Effect 76
Situational Factors as Sources of Error 82
Experiments as Sources of Error 83
Problem in Crime Statistics Uniform Crime Reports/Unreported Crime—"The Dark Figure" 84
References 88
5 TECHNIQUES FOR AVOIDING ERRORS 90
Nonreactive Measures Erosion Measures/Accretion Measures/Physical Evidence/Archival Data/General Forms of Nonreactive Measure 91
Control Groups Ethical Considerations in Using Control Groups/Equating Treatment and Control Groups/Placebos as Controls 102
Dealing with Flaws in Crime Statistics 110
Victimization Surveys General Considerations/National Crime Survey (NCS) 111
References 116
6 STANDARD APPROACHES TO RESEARCH 118
Ways of Classifying Research Classification by Purpose/Statistical Classification/Temporal Classification/Classification by Control over Variables 119
Control and the Advancement of Knowledge 121
Systematic Observation Naturalistic Observation/Surveys: Questionnaires and Interviews/Physical Traces and Archival Records/Sociometry 124
Experimentation The "True" Experiment/The Nonlaboratory Experiment 140
References 148
7 PROGRAM EVALUATION 150
What Is Program Evaluation? 151
An Example: Evaluating "Scared Straight" The Program/The Finckenauer Reports 153
Evaluator as Advocate 157
Issues of Generalizability 159
Assessing Process and Assessing Impact Process Assessment/Impact Assessment 160
Issues of Economics 167
Conclusions 169
References 170
8 DESCRIPTIVE STATISTICS: CENTRAL TENDENCY AND VARIABILITY 171
Measures of Central Tendency Mean/Proportion/Median/Mode 173
Indicators of Variability Variance/Standard Deviation/Mean Absolute Deviation from the Median/Range 179
Standard Scores 183
9 DESCRIPTIVE STATISTICS: CORRELATION 188
The Product-Moment Correlation Coefficient 190
The Meaning of Correlation Scatter Diagrams/Correlation in Everyday Phenomena/Examples of Use of Correlation Coefficients 196
Other Measures of Correlation Curvilinear Relationships/Dichotomous Data/Ranked Data 202
Correlation and Causation 214
References 215
10 PROBABILITY AND PROBABILITY DISTRIBUTIONS 216
Probability Sample Space/Equal Likelihood/Mutually Exclusive Events/Properties of Probability/Probabilities in the General Case 216
ProbabiLity Distributions Binomial Distribution/Normal Distribution 227
11 STATISTICAL INFERENCE 239
Sampling Simple Random Sampfing/Stratified Sampling/Cluster Sampling 239
Statistical Inference The Logic of Statistical Inference/Estimation/Testing Statistical Hypotheses 248
INDEX 261